Downey doesn’t rule out further beef price protests

Further beef price protests, by the IFA, have not been ruled out, IFA President Eddie Downey has said.

His comments come in the wake of a lengthy meeting of the beef forum in Dublin last night were agreement was reached over specification issues.

Speaking on Newstalk this morning the IFA president described the meeting as ‘very difficult’. He said as a result of lengthy negotiations a position has been reached on specification that was approved by the Minister and the forum.

“We think we can move forward on the whole area of Specification,” he said. However, Downey said that price is another issue, an issue for the industry and farmers and the industry have to ‘move on’ on price.

When pressed by Newstalk presenter Ivan Yeats as to whether the dispute was over Downey responded: “that depends on the industry, they have to ‘move on’ on price.

“We have had issues on price with the industry all along. So they have got to move on on that and we have made it very clear that we have to see a substantial movement on price in order to resolve all these issues,” the IFA President added.

Downey said that the IFA will wait and see processors go on price. “Only an increase in price will resolve that problem,” he said.

Downey outlined that there is a meeting of the IFA Executive Council today and price will be a major part of the discussion at that meeting.

He said the Council will take as long as it takes to discuss the area of price and he wouldn’t like to pre-empt that meeting.